1916-17.] 



2 9 7 



oldest yet found in Ireland, older than the famed window of St. 

 Canice. The lecture was fully illustrated with lantern slides by 

 Mr. A. R. Hogg. Mrs. Gibson having been elected to membership 

 the meeting terminated. 



"the applications of geology to the development 

 of mineral resources." 



The fifth meeting of the Winter session was held in the 

 Biological Lecture Theatre of Queen's University (by kind 

 permission of the Vice-Chancellor) on 20th March. The Vice- 

 President, Mr. Joseph Maxwell, occupied the chair and, after 

 having thanked Dr. Hamilton on behalf of the Club for the use 

 of the room in which to hold the meeting, he called on Mr. 

 W. B. Wright, B.A., F.G.S., M R.I.A., Delegate from the Irish 

 Field Club Union, to deliver his lecture entitled "The Applications 

 of Geology to the Development of Mineral Resources." 



The lecturer described the search for concealed coal-fields 

 now proceeding in England, and gave an account of the geological 

 reasoning which led up to the discovery of the Kent Coal-field. 

 He then endeavoured to show how a similar train of reasoning 

 can be made to throw light on the possibility of the occurrence of 

 coal beneath the basalt plateau of County Antrim, and indicated 

 the area within which exploration could be carried on with the 

 greatest chances of success. The difficulties which have been 

 encountered in the recent attempts to subdivide the coal-bearing 

 strata into zones, characterised by their fossil contents, was next 

 gone into, and it was shown that all that had been attained was a 

 sort of statistical zoning depending on the relative abundance of 

 certain common species and requiring the collection of a large 

 number of specimens to be in any way effective. Such zoning is 

 of little use in the interpretation of bore-cores. The lecturer 

 concluded with an account of some new evidence bearing on the 

 much discussed question of the origin of the placer or "alluvial " 

 gold of Co. Wicklow. 



